How do you think you did?
“It was fun to finally play ball. It’s been a long time coming, really enjoyed playing with my teammates tonight. We have expectations every game and we obviously want to score more points, but we got the win. That’s the most important thing, and no turnovers that’s a big plus. We need to cut down the penalties, but I thought we did a really good job as an offense.”
Explosive plays?
“They did a really good job of keeping everyting in front of them. They wanted us kind of to go the long way. You saw that with the amount of yards that we had, but it took a lot of plays to get those yards. All the credit in the world to them. They did a really good job of making us earn it, per see. You get some teams that kind of play risk reward, they try to all-out pressure you and say you won’t throw it over our head. They did a good job of bringing four- and five-men pressures and playing a zone behind it.”
How was handling pressure of first start?
“I actually didn’t get nervous. I actually surprised myself. It was an awesome experience playing in the Swamp, 92,000 people. I was looking forward to it for a long time and I had a good time with my teammates out there.”
No turnovers the big takeaway?
“Protecting the ball is huge. The explosive plays will come. If you’re an explosive offense that turns the ball over a lot, what’s the point?”
Thoughts on having 10 points so late in game?
“You try not to get frustrated. You try to stick to the gameplan. The coaches put in a good gameplan. We were having successful plays, just penalties, one missed blocked here, a drop here, a missed throw here, just little things like that kind of hinder drives individually. But I thought we did a fairly decent job of executing the gameplan. I really liked the gameplan that we had going in. It felt very comfortable with it, but we need to do a better job of being more consistent.”
Able to reflect at any time on the moment?
“Yeah, I’d say when we came out at halftime. I kind of looked around and was like, ‘That’s pretty cool.’ Playing for the Gators, I never thought I’d be playing here, but SEC football at its finest. We’ll get to see Kentucky next week. We’re really excited to kind of get the SEC play going. We’re going to enjoy this win. But we’re excited for next week.”
Nice to have Eddy Pineiro?
“Oh yeah, yeah, it’s nice. I think, ‘Ah man, we have to punt,’ and then I see him run out and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s … all right, go ahead.’ And he drills it. It’s always nice to have a reliable kicker and we’re really proud of what he’s done. He came in here and he earned the spot. We put him in some pressure situations in camp and he delivered, so we’re proud of him.”
How do you feel physically?
“Pretty good, yeah, pretty good, yeah. To be honest it kind of feels good to get hit. Being on scout team for a year, you’re kind of I wish someone would just light me up one play just to let me know what it feels like.”
You want Jarrad to do that?
“Nah, Antonio Morrison got plenty of that.”
“You know, try to limit those. I accept some of those as my fault, scrambling I need to get rid of the ball quicker if nothing’s open just throw it away. I end up throwing it away anyway and getting hit. Why not just take the hit away and throw it away sooner.”
Any one area want to work on?
“More explosive plays, but like I said before those have to come to you. When you try to force those that’s when you turn the ball over, that’s when you get behind. Trying to make plays, that doesn’t work. It might work every now and then, but you’re going to lose more times than you win.”
Hard to overthrow AC by five yards, jacked up?
“Yeah, I mean, the first play you’re always excited for the first play. I wasn’t nervous, nervous like, ‘Oh god …’ I was really juiced up, I was excited yeah absolutely. It was probably the farthest I’ve ever thrown a football. I threw it and was like, ‘Oh, that’s way too far.’ I didn’t think I could overthrow him, but I did.”
How long know that was the play?
“Four or five days. I was excited for it for awhile. It would have been nice to connect, but I know he had a lot of catches so he was happy with the end.”
Share moment with Dad?
“I haven’t seen him yet. I’m going to see him now. I know it’s hard for him, he has a quick turnaround, but I haven’t see him yet.”
